Monseñor Romero,
a Salvadoran and a Christian

By Jon Sobrino, S.J.

Spiritus 1 (2001): 143-155 © 2001 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

The most essential thing about the life, faith, praxis, and destiny of Monseñor
Romero was this: he was a real human being, in a real world and a real church, with a real faith, real hope, and real commitment.1 This is what I wish to affirm when I say that Monseñor was, simply and above all else, a Salvadoran and a Christian. I want to recall this clearly so that Monseñor Romero will not be relegated to the void—to la nada. This is what many of those who, in his day, hated him and killed him would like. Many of those who even today do not know what to do about him would like this,
too. I want to recall his realism, above all, in order that Monseñor not be relegated to a kind of unreality, to appearance or to Docetism, or turned into a figure on a pedestal who offends no one. It is the profound realism of Monseñor Romero’s spirituality that has affected me the most. But before reflecting on that spirituality, I want to say something first about the problems I have with using this word, and why.
 

I must confess that the word “spirituality” makes me uncomfortable and even
scares me somewhat. The reason for this is that spirituality comes from Spirit, and
the Spirit is something that is not visible and is often contrasted with what is
material and historical. For this reason, to speak of spirituality can and often does
carry us, one way or another, off to an invisible world, or even to an unreal one.
This danger is clearly present whenever we speak about spirituality, but it is
especially tragic that it becomes manifest when one is speaking about Monseñor Romero’s spirituality, because if there is one thing that Monseñor did not do, it was to live in an unreal world or insulate himself from the reality of El Salvador.  Quite the contrary. Without a doubt Monseñor maintained an intimate relationship with God, the great Invisible, but that did not lead him to confuse the world of spirituality with the world of the invisible. Rather, it led him to incarnate spirituality extremely deeply and radically in the reality of El Salvador. He was, ever increasingly, a “real” archbishop, Christian, and Salvadoran. Spirituality never carried him off into an unreal world.

In the final section I will return to Monseñor’s relationship with God. But at this
point I simply want to emphasize that he did not fall into this danger and trap—
typical of many spiritual persons—as we often see in the history of the Church. Many
years ago a French author observed, in denouncing this error, “Because they are not
of this world, they think that they are heavenly beings. Because they don’t love human
beings, they think they love God.” Perhaps these are harsh words, but they are useful
and necessary, because they put us on our guard against a spirituality that is false.
What am I saying, then, about Monseñor Romero’s spirituality, if this spirituality
did not carry him off to an invisible or an unreal world? Basically, I would like
to say that Monseñor lived his life in the sight of God and of human beings, and
that his work, suffering, and dreams were characterized by power and energy. This
is quite proper, because power and energy are both signified by the word “spirit.”
Monseñor Romero was a spiritual person because he was filled with the power of
God, with the Spirit of God. But once again, to avoid falling into the error of
attaching wings to the Spirit, let us remember that this Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus,
and none other. The Spirit molded Monseñor Romero into a likeness of Jesus.
If we ask ourselves, before beginning our reflection, where Monseñor Romero
got this power and energy, and how he was able to bring his life into harmony with
the Spirit of Jesus, several things may be said. Without any doubt prayer, and
reading and hearing the Word of God, were important “places” where he immersed
himself in that Spirit. But prayer and meditation can be done in many
places and in many ways. I believe that what was unique about Monseñor was that
the special place from which he prayed and meditated was the reality of El Salvador,
filled as it is with both sin and grace, with both injustice and hope. To put it in
the most human terms, reality for him was the poor of Salvadoran society. It was
there, amongst the poor, that he made contact with God and immersed himself in
the Spirit, in the power of God.

Monseñor opened himself up to the Spirit of God and let himself be carried
along by his compassion for this Salvadoran reality—the terrible suffering, the
heroic solidarity, and the poor people’s incredible sense of hope. Love for God and
the Gospel did not cause him to distance himself from what was real; they did not
become some kind of drug he took to help him drift off to sleep. Quite the opposite.
Love of God and the Gospel turned him back to face the reality of his people,
and from there he drew light so that he might know God better, and he drew
power and energy from that place to put the Gospel into practice. Monseñor
Romero was a real Salvadoran and a real Christian, and this, I believe, was the
most essential thing about his spirituality.

With regard to Monseñor’s spirituality I will reflect on four elements that
follow the outline of the life of Jesus: incarnation, mission, cross, and resurrection.
Spirituality, for Monseñor Romero, consisted in living out—in reality—these four
critical moments in the life of Jesus.

MONSEÑOR ROMERO WAS, LIKE JESUS, “REAL” IN HIS INCARNATION WITHIN THE TRUE REALITY OF EL SALVADOR

I think we all remember a time when, if you wanted to praise someone, it was
common to say they were very “human” or “Christian” or “authentic.” However,
I do not think such words are sufficient in this case. Nor do I think it is enough to
say that “he was a saint” or “he was very spiritual.” Someone might be all these
things and still not be real—in our case, not be Salvadoran. For example, in a
country where there have been persecutions, if these do not bespatter us with any
dirt, then people might say all the beautiful things about us mentioned above, but
we are not real. Indeed, we have become unreal.

Let us recall Monseñor Romero now and ask ourselves, what was the reality
of his time? Actually, things have not changed much since then. There were
anawim in El Salvador then, those “bent beneath the weight of heavy burdens,” as
the Scriptures say. There were poor people, for whom to be of service was the
greatest ambition, and whose most likely fate was often death from hunger or from
violence at the hands of the state. There were—and still are—those who had no
dignity, who had no significance, those who did not count, those who were
excluded. There were those who were silenced, those who had no voice. There
were those who were powerless, who did not have the ability to defend their most
basic rights. There were also those considered to be of no account because they did
not follow the cultural dictates imposed on us.

That was the reality then, and all these groups of persons (Neoliberalism
would today add to the list those “who do not exist”—those who cannot even be
considered cheap hand labor—because they are unemployed, and it is impossible
that they will ever be employed) were oppressed by that reality. Additionally, we
are more aware of the oppression, hidden for centuries, of women, of children, and
of whole races of people. In the days of Monseñor Romero there also was cruel
and inhuman oppression—today it no longer takes the abhorrent forms it did then.
As he would say, “Hacking people down with machetes, torture, exile, throwing
people into the air (from a helicopter) … . That is a Satanic empire.”

The question we must ask about Monseñor Romero’s spirituality then, is what
did he, as a man and as a Christian, do within that reality? Let us begin by remembering
what he did not do. Although it might seem obvious, one thing that
Monseñor Romero never did was to distance himself from that terrible reality. To
elucidate this, we might begin by recognizing his limitations, including things he
did that may have been mistakes. Still, one thing Monseñor never did was to
distance himself from the reality in which he lived—and that is the first step of
what Christians call incarnation. When we speak of the flesh that Christ assumed
Sobrino | Monseñor Romero, a Salvadoran and a Christian in the Incarnation, the Gospel does not speak simply of “flesh,” but of sarx, which is to say, “the debilities of the flesh.” Monseñor Romero did the same thing: he did
not simply incarnate himself within Salvadoran reality; he also took on the debilities of that reality: the pain, poverty, suffering, and oppression of the poor, and the violence directed against them by the state.

I begin my analysis of Monseñor Romero’s spirituality in this way because, in
my opinion, one of the greatest dangers in the Church today, especially in the
Salvadoran Church, is the absence of true incarnation in reality. The danger we
face is that of falling into unreality, and thus we end up living outside this world,
and never making the real life of the poor of this country our own. The Church
might say that its reality has other parameters, which is obviously true—it has its
evangelization parameters, liturgical parameters, doctrinal parameters, and
canonical parameters. The Church accepts that it can play a role only in the social
sphere, not in the political sphere. It reiterates that its true purpose is bringing
God’s salvation. But what worries me is that by appealing to these arguments—
which are of questionable validity—or others like them, the Church ends up
distancing itself from the reality of El Salvador.

Let us consider a relatively recent example, which I mention with all respect
due such matters, but I mention it because of the way it illuminates the theme of
incarnation. In 1996, we were visited by the Holy Father. If we look beyond what
was an understandable and inevitable mixture of devotion and euphoria, of
Christian message and folk expression, the question becomes, how and where was
the reality of this country made visible within the context of that visit? In other
words, where were the poor? Of course, they could be seen on the sidewalks all
along the route taken by the papal procession, but they were there more as part of
the background than as something that is central to our reality. The most “real”
aspect of that reality—their poverty and suffering, as well as their hopes and
pleasures—was not made a central theme. It would seem that, according to the
organizers of the Holy Father’s visit, making that reality visible was not truly
important. It was certainly not the most central issue. So, in this way, the Church,
without meaning to do so, created the appearance of many things at once: of being
well organized, and of being close to the leadership of the country and to the
media. It did not, however, give the image of being a Salvadoran Church, or a
Church of the poor, or a Church that is “real.”

With Monseñor Romero, things were not like that. The reality of the poor
moved him passionately and he let that passion absorb him, not for superficial
sentimental reasons, but because he saw in it the endpoint of pain and of hope, and
the endpoint of his own faith: the presence of God and of Jesus. I often say,
because it impressed me so deeply, that many things could be said about Monseñor
Romero’s Church. You can say that his Church had limitations, that it made many
mistakes and committed many sins. But what you cannot say about Monseñor
Romero’s Church is that it was not Salvadoran. I do not mean this in a populist
sense. Nor can you say that the Church was not “real.” The majority of the poor,
the peasants and the workers, did not feel that this Church was alien to them. They
did not see it as separate from themselves. They saw it as Salvadoran, as real, and
as theirs.

Monseñor Romero expressed this, above all, in his daily routine. But every
once in awhile he would also let slip some audacious and beautiful remark that
captured his great dream, which was that the Church might be Salvadoran. For
example, Monseñor Romero would make statements that still amaze us today,
such as, “I am glad, brothers and sisters, that the Church is being persecuted.”
Someone might think that these are the words of a mystic, or a saint, but that
would be a mistake. These are simply the words of a Christian and a Salvadoran.
He explained the reason he felt this paradoxical gladness: the Church was persecuted
“because it tried to become incarnate in the interests of the poor.” Monseñor
Romero was pleased that the Church was persecuted not because of some precipitant
mysticism, but because this made the Church a Salvadoran Church, a Church
that was real. Using even stronger words, he sometimes said, “It would be sad that
in a country in which there are so many horrible assassinations there were no
priests counted among the victims.”

These are the words of a great Christian. I would even go so far as to say that
they should be sufficient to canonize him and make him a doctor of the Church.
But the important thing is not the inspiration or the genius of the formulation, but
the depth of the conviction of Monseñor Romero, and of his passion to “be real.”
Certainly the priests who were assassinated are a testimony to a Church that is
incarnate in the problems of the people. They were not perfect; Monseñor recognized
this. They had their faults, but they were assassinated for living in and trying
to create a Salvadoran Church, a Church that was real.

It is also important to emphasize, not only to correct any suggestion of
masochism but also to understand Monseñor Romero’s passion for a Church that
was real, that he wanted this Church to express the positive aspects of Salvadoran
reality, the pleasures and hopes of the poor, as the beginning of Gaudium et Spes
says to do—but he wanted this to be taken seriously. When he witnessed the
tenacity and long suffering of the people, he would say, speaking to Christians, “If
someday they take the radio away from us and shut down the newspaper, if they
refuse to let us speak, if they kill all the priests and even the bishop, and you are
left alone, if only the people remain, without any priests, then each one of you
must become God’s microphone. Each one of you must become a messenger. Each
one of you must become a prophet.”

These words spoken by Monseñor Romero about his Church reflect what he
himself was: a man possessed by the spirit of incarnation, a spirit of solidarity with
reality and with its poor. I imagine that if there was one thing that would have
Sobrino | Monseñor Romero, a Salvadoran and a Christian made Monseñor ashamed, it would have been a Church that was not bespattered by the dirt of Salvadoran reality. Likewise, he would never have suggested, even
within his own heart, that the Church should be exempt from the dangers of our reality. This error, so often accepted without a thought, he would have denounced as Docetism, which is what it ends up being. This type of thinking goes something like this: “Although unjust and regrettable, it is understandable that the labor
unions have their microphones confiscated or their buildings bombed, or that the peasants be oppressed and attacked. What is not acceptable is that the Church be treated in this way, because we are not like everyone else.” Monseñor Romero would say just the opposite: “I am glad that they confiscated our microphones! We
are like everyone else, and we are going to show the same tenacity and longsuffering as everyone else.”

I come to the end of this reflection. The Church of Monseñor Romero, with
him as its head, was a Church that was real. By way of contrast, a Church that in a
time of poverty is not poor; that in a time of persecution is not persecuted; that in a
time of assassinations is not subject to assassination; that in a time of solidarity
does not manifest solidarity nor dares to do so in times of indifference; that has no
hope in a hopeful time nor dares to hope in a time of hopelessness, simply is not a
Church that is real. Perhaps it might be considered “spiritual” by other measurements,
if you permit me this irony, but it would not have the “spirit of reality”
Monseñor Romero had—and which Jesus of Nazareth had, too.

MONSEÑOR ROMERO, LIKE JESUS, FULFILLED HIS MISSION, WHICH WAS
THE EVANGELIZATION OF AN ENTIRE NATION, OF ALL OF REALITY

Monseñor Romero evangelized through the Word, announcing the good news of
God’s love to the poor, denouncing the oppressor, and writing pastoral letters to
bring light to the nation. He also evangelized through his deeds: by seeking
through dialogue to bring about peace, by supporting the work of Judicial Aid and
the Social Secretariat, and by opening the first shelters when the war began. He
also evangelized through his person; his way of acting was itself gospel, good news,
for the majority of people in the country and for many others beyond our borders.
All this is well known. What needs restating, in terms of spirituality, is, in the first
place, that Monseñor did all these things in a spirit of mercifulness. In the second
place—and this I want to emphasize—this was a mercifulness that was extended to
an entire people. Monseñor Romero sought the salvation of an entire nation.
I want to recall this because today there are all kinds of ecclesial movements
that seek to bring salvation to married couples, to young people, to university
students—we also try to do the same things here at the University of Central
America—and we all know how necessary this work is. But we must be clear that
the reality of our situation is greater than these things. Reality, of course, includes
these things, and it tells how important they are. For example, in our countries the
youth issue is decisive. However, we must not forget that reality includes the entire
people. Perhaps this sort of language seems outmoded or naive, because there have
been many changes in the Church since the days of Monseñor Romero. But if we
wish to recall Monseñor, then we must also remember the popular majorities. We
must remember the people.

Ignacio Ellacuría, who is very knowledgeable regarding Monseñor Romero
and is anything but naive, was asked, shortly after Monseñor’s death, to write an
article about him. He began it with these words: “Monseñor Romero, the man sent
by God to save his people.” With regard to the mission of the Church, this reminds
us that Monseñor’s desire was to work out the salvation of the people. With regard
to spirituality, it reminds us that he was inspired to include everyone, the whole
nation. “I want these homilies,” he would say, “to become the voice of those who
have no voice,” that is to say, of the majority, of the common people. When he
witnessed violations, horrors, and the countless occasions of suffering in the
country, he would say, “Upon these ruins will shine the glory of the Lord.”

When, in compassion, he would look on the people, he said, like Jesus said,
“They are like sheep without a shepherd.” What am I trying to say by this? That in
following Jesus and carrying out the mission of the Church, Monseñor Romero
kept the majority of the people and a complete view of reality ever before him. He
could not bring salvation all by himself, of course. The Church cannot do that,
either. However, he never fell into what I regard as the “triple error.” The first
error is to place boundaries on the scope of the Church’s evangelization, taking
care to not overstep the limits of normal ecclesial concerns, and making oneself
smaller to stay within those limits, thus reducing the scope of the Church’s mission,
saying, “This is political, this is not political.” It is as if, by determining what is
and what is not reality through the use of definitions, the primary responsibility of
the Church and of all human beings, which is to bring salvation to all of reality,
might be made to disappear. The second error is to lower and hold down the
horizons of the Church’s mission; by satisfying itself with the doing of good deeds
the Church is thus absolved of its responsibility. The third error is to agree to an
“abridged version,” in which the totality of situations is not recounted, such as
whole peoples crucified, hopes dashed, and the laborious task it is to try to take
them down from the cross. In this regard, Monseñor Romero breathed the spirit of
the epic narratives.

Monseñor Romero was not mean-spirited, not a man of pettiness, not the
“save what you can” type. In the professional sense, as an archbishop, he was well
aware of what his duty was and was not. However, the horizons of his mission
were clear: salvation must reach everything and everyone. In this regard, Monseñor
Romero was a man with a largeness of spirit, a man of strength when the hour
came for decisions to be made. His pastoral letters—and here it must be noted that
in the intervening years since his time no pastoral letters of importance have been
written regarding this country—his letters considered how problems would impact
the entire population. His denunciations, as we all know, were heard around the
world. And this happened even though he mentioned, in fact because he mentioned,
all the cases of human rights violations. His dominical homilies were
unparalleled and exemplary; they amounted to a massive pastoral pronouncement
on everything, and they reached everyone. This did not happen by accident; rather,
it was what he desired and then brought to fulfillment in the light of conditions
that made such a massive pastoral pronouncement necessary. It proceeded from
serious biblical reflection in preparation for giving a homily that would truly bring
light to shine on the country’s reality. It was reflected in the credibility of his
words, the decision to continue “forever” despite the slander, the many types of
interference, or the destruction of the bearer of the Word.

Monseñor Romero’s hope was to evangelize the structure of society—something
seldom even considered these days. He wanted to change the economic and
political infrastructure, as well as the legal institutions, the health care institutions,
and the media. He also wanted to change—to evangelize—the ecclesial infrastructure,
with its curia, parishes, religious congregations, educational institutions, and
internal politics. When he saw serious problems in the country—the violence, the
problems faced by grass-roots organizations, and, toward the end of his life, the
imminence of war—he tackled these in a responsible fashion. He always acted in
the country’s best interests. Sometimes he uttered threats of punishment, like the
prophets of ancient Israel, but never against this or that person, but rather against
an entire class of people guilty of oppression. “You rich, remove your rings,
because, if you don’t, your hands will be cut off” (quoting, of course, from Paul VI).
Monseñor Romero also perceived that, within the errors I have mentioned
above, there are other errors of the opposite sort, too, such as becoming involved
in politics as an entity with political power, or trying to do so much that you end
up accomplishing nothing. However, he did not regard these as major issues. He
did not allow himself to be walled up in a sacristy, or in a pastoral letter, or in a
mission with limited horizons.

He accomplished all this with an exceptional creativity that combined real
closeness with people in their communities. In making his pastoral visits, he dealt
with the reality of the entire archdiocese, and he did not lose the perspective of the
country as a whole. If Monseñor Romero went to a specific town or a village, this
act would have larger implications. If he spoke on the radio, many communities
were able to participate and hear what he was saying. When he opened a shelter—
with great symbolism, in the building that housed the seminary—he did much
more than to simply open “one” shelter; he started a whole shelter movement.
What am I trying to say? I believe that Monseñor Romero undoubtedly had an
idea what evangelism meant—in 1977, he organized a conference for priests on
Paul VI’s Evangelii nuntiandi. The most innovative aspect of this for me was that
he wanted to evangelize the country in its totality—everyone: individuals, social
groups, and infrastructures—and to evangelize a country in which there was
terrible oppression and state-sponsored violence, kidnappings, disappearances, and
killings; where there was poverty and injustice but also hope, solidarity, strength,
faithfulness, and martyrdom. I repeat, Monseñor was a man of courage, of Pauline
parresía. “Evangelize” meant, “to bring salvation to a people.” There is a deficit of
such thinking in the Church these days.

MONSEÑOR ROMERO BORE THE BURDEN OF REALITY:
LIKE JESUS, HE DIED ON THE CROSS

This is a well-known fact and it need not detain us. I merely want to make clear
that Monseñor’s spirituality was not a spirituality of suffering, to be understood
either ascetically or mystically, but rather a spirituality of honor in the face of
reality, and thus, necessarily, a spirituality of bearing the burden of reality.
Monseñor could easily have toned down his denunciations; he could easily have
reached an understanding with certain authorities, or left the country—and done
so with ample justification. But his sense of honor led him to bear the heavy
burden of reality and not seek to escape from it. Above all, it must be said that he
never invoked God or the Gospel as an excuse for fleeing from his obligations.
Bearing the cross is not some sublime experience. Rather, it is the most
absolutely obvious task if one wishes to behave honorably in the face of reality. I
say this because this conviction has become eroded lately. There is a deficit in this
country generally, both among politicians and within the Church, of this sense of
honor and readiness to bear the burden of reality.

It is commonly said today that things have changed, and it is true that there
have been important innovations. But in this country there has been no change in
the fundamental reality of poverty and injustice—although they may take on
different forms—nor has violence been curbed to any major extent. At the level of
world statistics, the annual United Nations reports show that the planet has
remained mired in violence to a horrendous extent; there has been no substantive
change in the amount of social conflict or the need for its unmasking and resolution.
There has been no change in the need to engage in this conflict. What has
changed, in many places and also in this country, is the willingness and resoluteness
to see and say the truth, as well as to engage in the conflict.

In the days of Monseñor Romero, the Church came into conflict with the
powers of oppression when it defended the majority of the people against oppression
and state-sponsored violence. We know that this stance created great suffering and, in
the long term, that this stance is hard to maintain—and, of course, not all situations
in the long term of history are equally serious. However, it would seem that today one
tries to avoid anything involving conflict as if on principle, as if some better way has
been discovered, some way of being Church and remaining on good terms with other
powerful entities in this world, even when these entities continue to create victims.
When this is the case, reality is neither a burden nor something onerous, and
there is no need to bear its burden. But then one hears the quiet echo of Monseñor
Romero’s words: “A Church which does not suffer persecution, but in fact enjoys
the privileges and the support of the world, is a Church which should be afraid,
because it is not the true Church of Jesus Christ.” He said such things at a time
when the persecution of the Church and of grass roots organizations was harsh
and pitiless, and today that is no longer the case. However, to think that not
suffering persecution is more Christian, or that the most desirable arrangement is
for the Church to be on good terms with the powers of this world is an error, if
considered in light of the Gospel—and in light of Monseñor Romero.
In society there are many real conflicts, and the Church will find itself facing
many other potential conflicts if it is truly fulfilling its mission of prophetic
denunciation and maintaining a preferential option for the poor. To face such
conflicts, the Church must have a spirit like Monseñor Romero had, a spirit of
integrity with regard to reality, a spirit of strength to join in the conflict and a spirit
of resolve to bear the burden of that reality. This is what it means to carry the cross
today.

MONSEÑOR ROMERO ACCEPTED THE BURDEN OF REALITY AND EXPERIENCED THE GRACE OF LIVING AS IF ALREADY PARTICIPATING IN THE RESURRECTION

Shortly before he died, Monseñor Romero said these well-known words: “If I am
killed I will resurrect in the people of El Salvador.” And one can say that this has
come to pass in many ways: Monseñor lives on in our sense of hope, in the
celebrations of individuals and of communities. He lives on, above all, in many
Salvadoran hearts, as in the hearts of people all over the world, whenever anyone
decides to live as he did, and as Jesus did.

Since we are speaking about the spirituality of Monseñor Romero, I would
like to conclude with some reflections that are normally not included. It is true that
reality is harsh and one must bear with that harsh reality, but reality also bears
with us and helps us to walk within history. In Christian terms, we can say that in
reality there is both gift and grace, that there is something we receive. If I were to
use even more audacious language, I would say that we can live within reality like
persons who already p